


Children of Jenova

by cruellae (tinkabelladk)



Series: Cloud and Company [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 04:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17800769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkabelladk/pseuds/cruellae
Summary: For five years, Sephiroth slept. In the far north, beneath a blanket of snow, cocooned in a crystalline shell, he pulled the shards of his will from the chaos of the lifestream.And then he woke.





	Children of Jenova

There is a certain grace in the way Sephiroth falls to his death. His black cloak fluttering as though it could catch him before he reached the glow of the reactor’s core, his long silver hair flowing around his face like a shroud. He never took his eyes off the boy who killed him, who stood bloody but unbowed at the railing, beside Masamune’s sinister glinting blade.

Sephiroth falls, not into shadow, but light. The blue glow and radiant hum of the Mako reactor swallow him before he can reach the bottom.

He may be Jenova’s child, but his will is his own, and it is stronger than iron. The Lifestream swells around him, urging him to become one with the vitality of the Planet, but he is, as always, his own master. And so his self fragments, but does not dissolve into the great energy-being that is the soul of his Planet. All the parts of Sephiroth, the cold slivers of his consciousness, are swept up like diamonds in a river, but like diamonds, they do not lose their shape in the current.

The Lifestream takes him here and there on its chaotic journey through the Planet’s many energy channels. But slowly, relentlessly, Sephiroth’s will draws them back together, a magnetic pull to the truth North. His strength, his mind, his very self return to him like beasts creeping in at twilight.

It is a slow process, days accruing into into months and years as he sleeps in a crystalline cocoon awaiting the moment of his glory.

And then—he wakes.

He is still incomplete—fragmented but conscious, and he has woken on the grimy platform of a train station in Midgar, the sickly yellow light of a street lamp shining down on him. His body is crumpled listlessly against the step, beside a puddle of murky water. Dirty hair hangs in his eyes, and he raises his hand to brush it away.

_Not—not my hand—_

The fingerless leather glove of a SOLIDER uniform, but it was never _his_ uniform. _He_ was always different, he had always stood apart.

“Cloud?” A woman peers down at him, long dark hair falling around her face.

_Cloud? I know that name. I know—_

“Are you okay?” the woman asks. She sits on the step beside him as though it is not covered in the muck of a thousand careless footsteps, her attention focused on— _not me, this is not—_

The head tilts up and he can see her more clearly.  Something about her tugs at him—something familiar.

 “Hey, let’s get out of here, okay?” she says, reaching out her hand. Her fingers are taped like a boxer’s, like she’s expecting trouble, always ready for a fight.

The SOLIDER puts his hand in hers, and with surprising strength, she pulls him to his feet. He stumbles, catching himself with his palm pressed to the lamp post. The strength in his arm, the quickness of his grip even in his muddled state—

_Jenova. He is Jenova, and so am I. We are all tied to Jenova, but only I, Sephiroth, have risen above it._

Jenova’s chosen are set to resonate at the same frequency, a song that only Sephiroth can hear, but all obey. There is no more damning evidence of his ascendancy than the fact that only he has mastered Jenova, while all the rest are little more than its children, carrying the blessings and the curses with no understanding or ability.

Sephiroth lingers in the back of Cloud’s mind, even as he sends tendrils of consciousness across the planet, reaching, hoping for more flickers of light. Cloud glows the brightest—he is resplendent with it—but there are other children of Jenova on this Planet, and Sephiroth will reach them all, in time.

The woman leads Cloud to a safe house, where he washes the grime from his hair and stands under the warm water for a long time. His thoughts are hidden from Sephiroth, but the weariness of his limbs, the gritty feeling behind his eyes, speak of a long journey far from over. When he pushes damp blond hair out of his eyes, standing before a tiny, cracked mirror, he is recognizable as a boy who swung a sword too big for him, a boy who was too stubborn to die.

He’s no longer a boy, aged by both the years that have passed and the sorrow half-hidden behind the eerie Mako glow to his eyes. He scowls at the mirror like he’s expecting it to talk back, as surly and defiant as Sephiroth remembers, even when there’s no one to see it but his own reflection.

 _You_ _’re alive,_ Sephiroth says, and Cloud tilts his head curiously, looking puzzled. _So am I._

Cloud shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it, frowns at himself one more time in the mirror, and then sets his chin and walks out of the bathroom.

 _I hope to see you again soon,_ Sephiroth whispers.

Cloud doesn’t respond, but Sephiroth knows he heard, because they resonate at the same frequency, because they are tied to one another by biology and destiny, these kindred spirits, these children of Jenova.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3
> 
> Last year I wrote [the book of my heart](https://www.amazon.com/Dark-City-Sarah-Kay-Moll-ebook/dp/B07FP4M6BH).


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